TAKEN
I’ve recently been reading folk songs,
about the exploits of the klephts and wars,
our own, engaging Greek affairs.
‘They’ve taken the City, taken it; they’ve taken Saloniki’.
And the Voice that both of them were hymning there.
‘to the left, the emperor, the patriarch to the right’,
was heard telling them to stop:
‘Put down your papers, priests, and close the Gospel books’
they’ve taken the City, taken it; they’ve taken Saloniki.
But of the others, the one that touched me most
is the Trapezuntine air, with its strange language,
and the sorrow of those far-off Greeks
who perhaps all believed that we’d yet be saved.
But, alas, a fateful bird ‘comes from the city’
with a paper under its wing.
Landing neither in the vineyard nor the orchard
it went and alighted at ...
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